Overview
Podman is a container management tool included with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It allows you to build, run, and manage containers in a way similar to Docker. Podman does not rely on a central background service (daemon) and is designed to run securely as a regular user.
Podman supports the same container image format used by Docker, which means most existing Docker images can be used without modification. By default, Podman runs in “rootless” mode. This means you do not need administrative (root) privileges to run containers, which reduces risk and makes it more appropriate for shared or student environments.
Support and Policy
On Fully Managed Linux systems Podman has been configured by Michigan Tech IT for it to work in our environment. Podman is only supported in its current configuration as deployed on these systems; changes to Podman’s configuration are not supported by Michigan Tech IT.
Michigan Tech IT provides support for the Podman tool itself (for example, installation and basic functionality). IT does not provide support for containers you create or for software running inside those containers. This includes installed applications, libraries, scripts, or course projects within a container. Users are responsible for managing their own containers and their contents.
If you encounter issues using Podman as documented in the example below, please contact IT Support through the IT Help Desk for assistance.
Podman storage configuration
Container images and related data are not stored in your network home directory. Because container images can consume significant disk space, they are stored locally on each system in a temporary storage location:
/scratch_30_day_temp/<username>/containers/
In this path, <username> refers to your individual login name.
This is stored in your 30-day scratch space. It is temporary storage and may be cleared automatically after 30 days or sooner if disk space becomes limited. Data stored here is not backed up.
Containers and images in this location:
- Do not persist across system rebuilds or reinstalls.
- Are not available if you log into a different system.
If you move to another system, you will need to pull or rebuild your container images again. For more details about the 30-day scratch space, refer to Knowledge Base - Temporary scratch space (Linux).
Example
To pull and run a basic container and get an interactive shell inside it, run:
podman run -it registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9/ubi /bin/bash
In this command:
registry.access.redhat.com/ubi9/ubi is Red Hat’s Universal Base Image 9 (a minimal RHEL-based container image)./bin/bash starts an interactive Bash shell inside the container.
After running the command, your prompt will change to something similar to:
[root@d16bb90895ce /]#
The long alphanumeric string represents the container’s unique ID. The prompt indicates you are now inside the container environment.
When you are finished, type:
exit
This closes the shell and stops the container.
Additional Resources